A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Poway school district
officials did not violate the constitutional rights of a Westview
High School math teacher by ordering him to remove large classroom
banners containing patriotic messages that referred to God.

The ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a
federal trial judge's 2010 decision that found for teacher Brad
Johnson.

The school district appealed the ruling, and on Tuesday, a
three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a
40-page ruling overturning the lower court finding as it related to
the two 7-foot-by-2-foot banners.

"We consider whether a public school district infringes the
First Amendment liberties of one of its teachers when it orders him
not to use his public position as a pulpit from which to preach his
own views on the role of God in our Nation's history to the captive
students in his mathematics classroom. The answer is clear: it does
not," appeals court Judge Richard C. Tallman wrote.

One of Johnson's banners, originally hung in Johnson's classroom
in 1982 when he taught at Mt. Carmel High, contains the phrases "In
God We Trust," "One Nation Under God," "God Bless America" and "God
Shed His Grace on Thee" written in red, white and blue stripes.

Another banner, originally hung in his Rancho Bernardo classroom
in 1990, contains a phrase from the Declaration of Independence:
"All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their Creator."

"Though Johnson maintains that his banners express purely
patriotic sentiments ... it seems as plain to us as it was to
school officials that Johnson's banners concern religion," Tallman
wrote. He later wrote, "One would need to be remarkably
unperceptive to see the statements .... as organized and displayed
by Johnson and not understand them to convey a religious
message."

In a footnote, the judge said that the court did not see the
statements in and of themselves as religious speech. It was
Johnson's "organization and his selected emphasis on the words
'God' and 'Creator' that drive our conclusion that the banners
concerned religion," the judge wrote.

The court found that when Johnson, a high school calculus
teacher, is at work, he is speaking not as an individual, but as a
public employee.

"Just as the Constitution would not protect Johnson were he to
decide that he no longer wished to teach math at all, preferring to
discuss Shakespeare rather than Newton, it does not permit him to
speak as freely at work in his role as a teacher about his views on
God, our nation's history, or God's role in our nation's history as
he might on a sidewalk, in a park, at his dinner table, or in
countless other locations," Tallman wrote.

Teacher Johnson did not respond to requests for comment. His
attorney, however, vowed to fight Tuesday's ruling.

"We are certainly disappointed with the decision," attorney
Robert Muise said. "We think it is incorrect."

Muise ---- of the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, a
national, Christian-based firm that filed the suit on Johnson's
behalf in 2007 ---- said he would ask for the full 9th Circuit
Court to review the decision of the three-judge panel. And if that
is not successful, he said, he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to
review the case.